Treat for All Tennis Lovers

French Open or Roland Garros is one of the biggest tennis tournaments and is the only one to be played on clay court. Roland Garros is the name given to stadium after Roland Garros, who was the aviation pioneer and was the first to fly Mediterranean. Some of the interesting facts related to Roland Garros or French Open tennis tournament are:

1) The French Open tennis tournament is 110 years old. The first Roland Garros tournament took place in 1891 as a national championship and got the international status in year 1925.

2) Born Borg has won the French Open tennis tournament championship for men’s single a record six times.

3) Suzanne Lenglen in 1926 won the women’s French Open title in 27 minutes.

4) Althea Gibson, an American player was the first black tennis player to win the French Open in year 1956.

5) In the final match of 1966, Istvan agreed to delay the match for 24 hours so that Tony Roche would get over his ankle injury. This agreement on Istvan’s part however allowed Tony to win the title.

6) As of 2006, the last six men’s Roland Garros tournaments were won by the tennis players who won no other grand slams.

7) Michael Chang became the youngest French Open tennis champion when he defeated Stefan Edberg 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 at the age of 17 years, 3 months in 1989.

8) Monica Seles is the youngest women to have won French Open tennis championship when she defeated Steffi Graf 7-6, 6-4 at the age of 16 years 6 months.

Monica Seles also holds the record. tied with Henin to win the French Open consecutively for three years.

The French Open is the second tennis Grand Slam played in a year after the Australian Open. It is also known as the Roland Garros tennis tournament because of its official name in French which is Les Internationaux de France de Roland Garros. Roland Garros is also the name of the stadium where the French Open is played. It is held over a period of roughly two weeks during the second part of May/into the beginning of June. Roland Garros tennis is totally different from the rest of the Grand Slams because of the stark contrast in the nature of the tennis courts or the surface on which the game is played. Most players find the nature of the court to be slow and difficult as compared to the hard, grass courts in which the ball travels a lot faster. There are many tennis champions who have excelled at all the other Grand Slams but have failed to show the same finesse at the Roland Garros tennis tournament. Pete Sampras and Roger Federer would be the two names which spring up the fastest in recent times. The reigning champion over here for the past four years is the current no.1, Rafael Nadal.